


i’m still learning to love

by clickingkeyboards



Category: Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: Best Friends, Canon Lesbian Character, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Crushes, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Kindness, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:47:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24355306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards
Summary: I feel like Daisy should be allowed to tell me about the things in her life in her own time.At the beginning of Fifth Form, Amina is determined to learn anything and everything that there is to know about Daisy Wells. What better way to do that than to pretend that she doesn't know a jot about what happened at Fallingford?
Relationships: Alexander Arcady/Hazel Wong (mentioned), Amina El Maghrabi/Daisy Wells, Daisy Wells & Hazel Wong
Kudos: 37





	i’m still learning to love

“Who did _you_ spend your summer with, Daisy?” Clementine asks, and there is a nasty bite to her voice that I have become increasingly resentful of in the days since we have been back at Deepdean.

Making sure that Miss Dodgson is well and truly out of the room and earshot, Daisy says, “I spent my holidays in London, with my uncle and aunt, and Hazel, of course. I never go anywhere without her. And my brother.”

She adds on the last part confidently, daring anyone to say a bad word about a boy badmouthed in the papers that we all know the suspected exploits of a little too well. Suddenly, I know exactly what to say. “You have a brother? I don’t have any siblings; I wish I did. What's he like?”

Daisy blinks in what I can only assume is mild shock, and says, “Pardon, Amina?”

“I asked what your brother’s like, Daisy,” I repeat, and I try to look as innocent as possible, pretending that I don’t know about That.

I know about That, of course, but I don’t know it as she does. The Fallingford Scandal is only spoken of in whispers, Hazel and Daisy murmuring privately with their hands clasped, fingers intertwined together and nails digging into each other’s palms, and in terrible shouts, students teasingly trilling, “Ste-phen Bamp-ton!” to watch Daisy’s shoulders tense up and her words choke off, and the unforeseen side-effect of her screaming at whatever unfortunate shrimp was callous enough to say the unspeakable, yelling until she shakes.

At breakfast yesterday, one particularly nasty Second Form shrimp was wicked enough to walk past the much-admired Daisy Wells and sing a cruel tune right beside her ear. “Stephen Bampton and Bertie Wells sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!” No one felt sorry for her when she ran to a mistress sobbing because Daisy said cruel things. I pretended that I didn’t hear.

There are two-page spreads in magazines, gossip about Daisy’s brother and his scandalous life at Cambridge, favouring champagne and parties and lovers over his studies—lovers suspected to be _men_ rather than women. Clementine pores over them and fills the student body with cruel quotes from the articles, shrieks with laughter at Daisy’s frosty reactions when she displays the theories about his clandestine fraternising while we’re eating breakfast. 

I feel like Daisy should be allowed to tell me about the things in her life in her own time. It’s unfair that the entire world knows about things that should be secrets between her and Hazel Wong. Daisy is beautiful and blonde and absolutely English, and yet Fallingford follows her like a dark cloud. I would hate if the entire world knew about the times my parents fought, the ridiculous pranks I pulled in the local mosque as a child, the rumours that float around about my auntie and uncle. So why should everybody know everything about poor Daisy Wells?

Even if there are some things that only Hazel will ever know about her, I would like to be a confidant of Daisy Wells, for her to tell me things no one else hears, to take my hand while telling me secrets, to whisper in my ear with her breath brushing over the shell of my ear in a ticklish way. There is something about her pretty blue eyes and curious pale features and delicate curls of golden hair that enrapture me in a way that I cannot quite fathom.

Daisy is sharing a look with Hazel, who is a little pink in her cheeks but smiling as she replies with only her eyes. “There’s not much to tell,” she says, and her tone is light amusement, schooled into the polite tones of the schoolgirl I know she does not consider herself. “Bertie’s a _dreadful_ bore.”

“That is _not_ true!” Hazel interjects, and Daisy shoots her a playfully annoyed look. “Bertie is very interesting, just… not as interesting as Daisy.”

After a pause, she says, “He’s a history scholar at Cambridge University. You’ve heard of Sir Mangaldas Mukherjee, Amina?”

“Who hasn’t?” I reply, and I notice every other girl in the class exchange furtive looks that tell me that the answer to my question is _them_. “You’re friends with his son, right?”

Nodding, Daisy brushes one of her twin plaits back over her shoulder and says, “George Mukherjee, yes. He goes to Weston with his friend _Alexander_.”

The words carry no meaning for me, but Hazel goes a flaming red and buries her face in her hands. “Shut _up_ about Alexander, Daisy! You know he doesn’t think of me that way.”

“Poppycock,” she replies primly, patting Hazel’s shoulder. “Alexander Arcady may be an idiot, but he would be a fool not to like you.”

Kitty Freebody, sat on Daisy’s other side, giggles into her hand. “I’ll say again, Hazel: if I was not _absolutely_ loyal to Hugo, I would definitely have stolen Alexander off you by now.”

Daisy chuckles at Hazel before saying, “Anyway, my brother is friends with Harold Mukherjee. He’s reportedly gunning for several prizes in the student competition this year. All while my brother rolls his eyes, of course.”

“Friends, you say?” Clementine says, and her smile is nasty. “Because the latest edition of _Abercrombie_ says that—”

“Clementine, no one cares a jot what _Abercrombie_ says,” Daisy snaps, and Hazel reaches out to put a hand over hers. “Didn’t last November teach you how _horrid_ rumours are?”

“But they aren’t just rumours, are they? Everybody knows that you had a murder happen in your home! And everybody knows that your brother gets up to less than savoury things in the dark corners of Cambridge! And everybody knows that your parents don’t have a happy marriage! Everybody _knows_ , Daisy. You can’t hide that from us.”

“Don’t be an ass, Clementine,” Lavinia Temple snaps, and goes to lunge at her.

Beanie Martineau pulls her back with arms around her waist, and Rose grabs Clementine’s wrist, and Hazel grips Daisy’s hand like she’s holding onto the situation for them both.

“I don’t care about that,” I say, and everyone staring at me is something so alien that I am so used to. “That’s all from frankly useless gossip magazines. None of us _know_ Daisy’s brother, do we?”

Silence.

My words are colder than intended when I say, “Then we have no room to talk. Go on, Daisy. Nevermind what _Abercrombie_ says, what is your brother really like?”

The pause stretches on and on, Daisy and Hazel having a silent conversation. They don’t need to speak, only think, and the other will catch their meaning. “He likes theatre,” she says eventually. “He went to see _Anything Goes_ on the West End, the one with Jeanne Aubert as Reno Sweeney.”

“I’ve never been a London theatre, although I should like to,” I say, and Daisy and Hazel _sparkle_ at each other. “Are they nice?”

“Very,” Daisy replies with a twinkle in her eye. “Hazel and I went to one. We were _proper_ West End actresses for an entire month.”

“Really?” Despite that my initial intention was merely to make Daisy Wells smile, I am invested in her stories now. “How come?”

Hazel sits up straight and goes to speak, and Daisy happily relinquishes the conversation to her.

“In January, I had to go to Hong Kong for the mourning period of my grandfather, and I took Daisy with me. I needed her there,” Hazel explains, her features open and very honest, dark eyes and flushed cheeks and dark hair loose from her plait framing her round face. She talks about Daisy as if she is an extension of her person, not somebody else entirely. It is as if they are symbiotic, unable to be without each other. “Being there was an… ordeal, so when we got back to England, Daisy’s aunt and uncle decided that we needed a rest after all that excitement. So, we stayed in London and only came back for the second half of the last term, like you would have seen.”

With an approving nod at Hazel, Daisy takes up the narrative from there. “While we were in London, we got into a slight of trouble and my uncle didn’t trust us to be alone in the house with both him and my aunt terribly busy at work. To solve the problem of their maid also being very busy running errands and unable to take care of us — like we need to be _taken care_ of — Uncle Felix called in a favour to the Rue Theatre and we auditioned for parts in Romeo and Juliet.”

I can feel my jaw drop in astonishment. Daisy and Hazel have a life that is almost fairy-tale, and I am sure that I haven’t heard even half of their exploits. Even though it was rather revealed to half of the school at the end of Fourth Form that they are _detectives_ , there must be more to their detective society than the two cases I know of: Fallingford and the murder at the Anniversary Weekend.

“What… trouble can two schoolgirls get into in London?” I find myself asking, and Clementine repeats the question scornfully.

“Our friends George and _Alexander_ —” Daisy says this with meaning and Hazel goes red “—were on an Exeat weekend and staying with George’s people in London. We read about that awful string of robberies on London museums and decided to do our most daring piece of detective work yet! We crept through the door open for the thief and ambushed them in the mummy exhibit of the British Museum!”

Hazel agrees enthusiastically and goes rather red at that, and I am sure that Daisy is telling the truth but hiding something else: that it was not their ‘most dangerous piece of detective work yet’. But I can’t imagine what they could do worse than _that_.

I must be smiling when I enthuse, “You have the most brilliantly exciting lives!”

Astonishingly, Daisy goes a little pink, though she brushes off my comment like she deserves nothing less. “Thank you, Amina,” she says graciously.

“At the Rue, Daisy was Rosaline,” Hazel says, toying with her plait. “She got to beautifully float around like a ghost, just like in the walking play! But she had some wonderful lines, very sharp and witty.”

“And I had to get ogled by horrid _Lysander_.” Her tone was horribly bitter, and she folded her arms. The familiar wrinkle appeared at the top of her nose as she presumably thought back.

After a pause, I asked, “What did you look like as Rosaline, Daisy? I bet you looked beautiful.”

It is as if Daisy’s brain stops working. She stutters and stumbles before recovering herself and saying, “I’m so sorry. I have absolutely no clue what happened there.” There are two pretty spots of pink high on her cheeks, and she explains her costume with a rather odd notice in her voice. “I had a _corset_ and a white gown, and a golden necklace with lots of fake gemstones that were beautiful colours. I had a tiara with a lot of gemstones and a lot of makeup.”

The girls from my dorm all gasp and giggle and exchange eye contact, scandalised by the mention of a _corset_.

“You didn’t have _that much_ makeup, Daisy!” Hazel interjects, reaching up to poke at Daisy’s face. She squirms and jokingly swats at her, though laughing as she does it. “It was only lipstick and blush.”

“You’re pretty enough, it’s a wonder that you even needed that!” I say, glancing to the door to make sure that Miss Dodgson is still well out of the room. “Sorry to jump topics but… have you investigated any other cases, other than the Anniversary Weekend?”

Both jump a little, and Hazel says, “We sometimes… forget that people know about our detecting now.”

Another snatch of eye contact punctuates the silence, and then Daisy says, “We have… four other cases.” Although it sounds like she’s being selective, leaving things out, I don’t comment. “Miss Griffin, in Third Year, the Bonfire Night murder, we were at Cambridge when the Melling twins died, and we happened to be there when Rose Tree died at the Rue.”

Hazel shoots her an impossibly grateful look and nods in agreement. “All dastardly cases.”

I almost can’t believe that I’m sitting in a room with two hardened detectives that are only fifteen, but I’m snapped out of gawking at them when Clementine says, “Of _course_ there was a murder at Cambridge. Murder just _follows_ your brother, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t be surprised if Harold Mukherjee died next or turned out to be a killer.”

Instead of the pretty flush to her cheeks, Daisy goes a startling red, and even I feel prickly all over. Why can’t Clementine leave well enough alone?

Daisy opens her mouth, but Hazel gets there first. “You’re pronouncing Mukherjee dreadfully wrong, Clementine.”

I stifle a snort, but Kitty laughs openly. “God, if you’re going to insult someone, get their name right!”

Suddenly we’re back to ragging each other as we’re used to, only I seem to have fallen in with the other dorm, and Daisy Wells doesn’t seem too bothered.


End file.
